


unreliable narrators

by gortysproject



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Also I haven't written fanfiction in years so bear with, Also apparently I'm into the extremely short chapters thing, Basically just Rhys and Jack angsting it out at Atlas, Canon-Typical Violence, If you're here for anything relatively romantic I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-06-01 02:05:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6496564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gortysproject/pseuds/gortysproject
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhys is known for lying when he tells the story, and there were some things he left unsaid about what happened after Helios crashed. Set immediately after the final confrontation with Jack in episode 5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Everything hurts.

This is the first coherent thought at the forefront of Rhys’ mind when he opens his eye, bleary gaze running over the destroyed remains that crackle and burn around him. Helios is gone. Hyperion, too, is as good as gone. Jack is gone.

Rhys might have felt happy about this, were the consequences of their downfalls not littered around his unmoving body. Mere weeks ago, he would have felt nothing but horror at the idea of Hyperion collapsing. Now it’s here, and all he can think about is the unending _pain_.

He doesn’t move for several minutes, assessing his injuries. His cheek is bruised. His clavicle feels fractured. He’s no doctor, but there’s something wrong with his ribs. His ankle is twisted. His palm is bleeding from gripping the glass shard. His temple throbs from the removal of the head port. There’s a still-bleeding hole where his cybernetic arm should be.

Rhys coughs, and more blood dribbles over his lip, so he guesses he might be bleeding internally too.

 _Not dead_ , he thinks to himself. _That’s an achievement_. Dragging his arm up, Rhys presses his palm to the ground and heaves himself onto his knees, wobbling from the lack of balance. “Right,” he mumbles. “No arm.” Eyelid remaining closed over his empty eye, he pushes himself to his feet, wobbling uncertainly as a dizzy spell sweeps over him. If the blood soaked into his shirt and pooled on the floor where he laid is any clue, then he’s probably going to pass out soon. A health kit would be good.

The weight of his ECHO-eye implant is heavy in his pocket as he strides to Jack’s crushed desk, leaning on it as he makes his way round. The exhaustion in his muscles brings fear, and fear brings adrenaline… or something. But he’s using up every piece of energy he has left.

Having limped over there to open drawers, check for anything worth taking, Rhys finds the desk too ruined to wrench open. The chair lays on the pile of rubble, the executive override port hanging in the air on its spindly arm. Rhys snaps it off impulsively. Maybe he imagines it, but it feels like the pain in his temple recedes slightly as he crushes it under his heel.

Next, his staggering steps lead him to the trophy case, partially intact even after its descent from orbit. He gingerly lifts the Conference Call from its bracket, bloodied palm pressing against the barrel, but soon replaces it back on the shelf, his weak arm trembling at the weight. It’s too heavy. He doesn’t even know if it has any ammunition loaded in it. A smaller gun that he recognises as having been in the case before is on the floor, not far away, but Rhys soon finds it has no ammunition either. So much for taking a weapon with him.

Then his eyes catch the sword.

It’s lighter than he expects it to be when he picks it up, examining it with a furrowed brow. It’s no gun, but it’s better than nothing, and Rhys only hesitates for a moment before adjusting his grip on it with a stance that seemed less afraid. Of course, that soon adjusts again to have him leaning the blade on the ground, resting some weight on the hilt like a crutch. He feels like he’s preparing to go somewhere, but he doesn’t know just where that is. Not yet.

First, he has to figure out where he is _right now._

A groan slips past his lips as he tries to walk away from the case, the blade he’s leaning on skidding unhelpfully against the ground and sending him stumbling. Sharp pain shoots through his ankle, and Rhys looks down quickly, wondering if the sword went through his leg – but there’s nothing there. The ankle is only twisted. “Knew that,” he mutters.

He glances back round the office as he turns to leave, half expecting to see the desk standing proudly in the center, Jack’s electric blue figure draped over it. Rhys can’t even lift his eye to the huge window for fear that he’ll see the bust of his nemesis on the screen, alive, animated, echoes of laughter reverberating round a vast, empty room –

Jack’s dead. And this time, he’s not coming back.

Rhys shakes his head to himself, and it’s then that something else catches his eye, also from the trophy case. The Atlas certificate. He looks around once again, almost as if someone’s going to stop him, before he leans the sword against a pile of debris and reaches out, smearing blood from his palm on the glass of the frame. It hits him, then, just how important this certificate could be. The glass is cracked; he only has to hit it against the wall twice for it to fully shatter, and he carefully tugs the paper from the edges of the frame, before bending slightly and rolling it up against his thigh to tuck into his pocket.

He wouldn’t have been able to carry it in the frame. Not with only one arm, and not with his… sword. Rhys reaches for it and picks it up again, held facing down for him to use to propel him along. It reminds him of a walking stick; he thinks if Vaughn were here, he’d crack a joke about how Rhys is only 27 years old.

With gritted teeth and a heavy sigh to whistle between them, Rhys begins to navigate his way out of the labyrinthine ruins of Helios, steeling himself for the lengthy journey ahead.

 

The remains of Helios sit as some precariously-balanced city skyline in the distance, smoke continuing to billow into the pale sky above, smudging what would be a beautiful horizon with inky black dust. Rhys merely tightens his grip around the hilt of the sword, and turns away from the sight. He has to keep walking; after surviving everything, there’s almost no point in dying now. His path leads him through the scattering of escape pods, and he pretends he can’t see the harsh skid marks against the rocks, or smell the gagging scent of burning flesh. Once or twice, his eye strays towards a pod, and he finds himself trying to scan it for life before catching himself. Perhaps it’s for the best that he doesn’t know.

After all, what could he offer the Hyperion refugees? He’s broken, lost, and helpless – even if they didn’t kill him on sight, he can’t give them anything. Some of these people are probably in more urgent need of a health kit than _he_ is. Most of them probably deserve it more.

 _They’ll wake up,_ he thinks to himself, _and they’ll find each other. Maybe they’ll band together, build a way to survive_. He can’t convince himself for long, and a voice in the back of his mind corrects him bitterly: _they’ll be skag food before the sky changes colour._ It sounds like Sasha.

He presses his hand to his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he continues to stumble in some direction. It hurts to think of her. Before he knows it, his traitorous brain is running through memories of all his friends – he last saw Sasha when he got out of the caravan as Vasquez; Fiona, holding the lever as he climbed up to the trapdoor; Gortys’ upbeat voice on the ECHOcomm, ( _see ya soon!_ ), trusting Rhys entirely; Loader Bot, pressing a bro-fist to the glass before Kroger shot him down. An uneasy glance turns back to the ever-distant sea of debris that Rhys crawled from, and he realises any of those bodies could have been his friends. Maybe they were.

“You’re _way_ better at killing people than I am,” Jack told him. Rhys almost believes it.

He passes a pod that’s already open, and his fingers hold onto the sword tighter. Something’s happened in the distance – past Helios, behind him, a huge cloud of dust lingers in the air, blanketing something. Despite that, the air seems eerily still, the vast desert plane emptier even with the wreckage strewn across it. Rhys thinks, for a moment, that he remembers seeing a brilliant beam of light towering to the sky before he passed out… but even if he isn’t imagining it, the light is gone now, and he doesn’t have the energy to turn and seek out the source of the disruption.

Swallowing with a dry throat, he continues to walk.

 

Time passes slowly and his feet drag over cracked earth even slower. The scattered pods thin out eventually, and Rhys considers ditching the sword altogether (hours had passed and he hadn’t seen a single other living person). But he diligently keeps hold of it, pressing the edge against the dusty ground to take weight off his twisted ankle.

The Pandoran sky is a hazy purple when he looks up, Elpis shadowed as the lilacs blend into something deeper, indigo, on the horizon. Rhys looks away from the towering moon, uncomfortable with the lack of Helios’ authoritative silhouette. He’d only been on Pandora for weeks, but it was enough to leave him with a sense of familiarity within the rapidly-changing colours of the atmosphere and the landscape he’d driven through.

Having spent so long looking up, he forgets to look down, and trips over the raised edge of –

A road.

Eyes slowly, almost comically following along the tar to look at where the road leads, Rhys stands up straight at the sight of the vehicle. More so, at the body slumped half-out of the driver’s seat. He approaches tentatively, raising his sword and masking his limp as he makes his way over to the open door. It becomes clearer as he gets nearer that the vehicle is in some state of disrepair, the glass of the windscreen shattered onto the body of the former driver. The driver himself is riddled with bullet holes.

Rhys takes a deep breath, glancing round to check that the passenger seat, and then the entire road, is empty, before he sets down the sword and tugs the body from where it’s already hanging out. A sickening thud follows the movement as the dead bandit collides with the ground headfirst, but Rhys wastes no time in picking up the sword, tossing it onto the passenger side, and climbing in.

The car’s mechanics is similar to any other Rhys has driven, and despite the difficulty of operating one-handed, it doesn’t take long before he’s leaving the desert in the rearview mirror.


	2. Chapter 2

He stopped for two things on the journey over here: a loot crate, which contained a health kit (along with twenty dollars), and a bar (where he lost the twenty dollars). It turns out even the scariest joints in Pandora will leave you alone when you walk in with a missing arm and a Hyperion badge. Having lost his twenty dollars to a man with a gun he was unafraid to point in Rhys’ face, before slinking up to the bar and feebly inquiring as to whether water would be free, he found himself exchanging something far more valuable than money for food and drink: information.

“You’re Hyperion,” the bartender said, eyes only flicking up from where he was polishing a glass briefly before lowering them again. “You really think I’d give you something… for free?” His voice eerily matched the first bandit Rhys had met at the grill in Prosperity Junction. 

“I…” 

“Play nice, Joe,” said the man at his side. “I don’t think nobody’s Hyperion no more.” He shifted, eyes raking over Rhys’ tired, dismembered figure, before sliding his drink along the bar slowly. “You look thirsty, kiddo.” 

Rhys stared at the drink for a long time, his swallow clicking his parched throat loudly. “Um, is this a trick? Like, I go to take the drink, and you cut my hand off or something?” 

His answer was a rumbling chuckle. “Seems like this kid knows Pandora better than we thought. Most boys in your uniform don’t last a day.” 

The drink was still in front of Rhys, and it took all his willpower to not run his dry tongue over cracked lips. “Guess I’m not most boys,” he replied, before running through the days in his mind. It had been… just over three weeks, since he’d first landed on Pandora in Vasquez’s car. “Can I take this drink, or what? I don’t really feel like losing my hand, today. Especially since it’s the only one I’ve got left.” 

He sounded bolder than he felt, and regret began to seep into the back of his brain. _You’re gonna die, now, idiot._ The man beside him was deathly silent; the entire bar was quiet. All eyes were on Rhys. Even the bartender stopped polishing his glass. It grew so quiet, Rhys wondered if every person in the bar could hear the thudding of his pulse. 

Then the stranger beside him started laughing. Uproarious, he slammed his fist into the bar and doubled over, tremoring as chuckles escaped him. “Joe, get that boy a drink o’ water.” He recaptured his own glass, chugging back whatever vile liquid was likely in there before setting it down on the bar with a satisfied thud. 

The bar seemed dimmer, darker than it was when Rhys entered, and he promptly decided he didn’t appreciate the mood lighting when the stranger’s harsh eyes turned on him. He saw his face properly, then, with a jagged scar running over the bridge of his nose, strangely pale against his dark skin. Some kind of scarf was bundled up to his chin. He was either overweight, or he had a built frame, but the greying roots of his hair told Rhys he was old. He leant back, a grin still lingering on the corners of his lips. 

The bartender set a glass down in front of Rhys, shook his head, then turned away to deal with someone else. Rhys’ eyes glanced back to the stranger. “I don’t have any money,” he said slowly, but the old man shook his head. 

“’M not askin’ for yer money, boy.” 

“Oh.” 

The old man shifted again, beckoning the group of four men in the corner to join them. A quick glance around told Rhys that they were the only other people in the bar. “See, my friends an’ I, we been talkin’ about recent events. An’ on any other day o’ the year, Hyperion scum comes into this bar, we toss ’em out. Through the back. Into the dumpster. Know what I’m sayin’?” At Rhys’ stiff nod, he carried on. “But this ain’t any other day o’ the year, is it, now.” 

One of the other men dragged out a barstool to drop onto, leaning close. Rhys decided it would be a good time to drink that water, and he reached for it with shaky fingers, downing the entire drink in one. The old man motions for the bartender to get another one. 

“So no, boy, I ain’t interested in any money that you clearly don’t ’ave. I want information.” 

The man that was leaning in close spoke up now, grabbing Rhys’ arm to turn him towards him. “Big H in the sky. S’gone. Saw it crash.” His grip on Rhys’ arm tightened, minutely, before he let go. “What ’appened?” 

Rhys didn’t notice this being ordered, but the bartender brought over some food with the water. A bowl of something was put in front of him, and he wasn’t entirely sure what it was supposed to be, but it looked edible and he picked up one of the small, round chips. He really missed his ECHO-eye telling him what he was about to eat, but with little other food choice and an empty stomach, he bit into it. 

He didn’t die, and the taste was pleasantly salty, so he ate the rest of it, and then took another before rinsing out the salt with a drink. “That depends,” he replied, looking coolly to the man as he swallows another chip. “You want the long story, or the longer story?” 

Another man gruffly interjected, a cigarette hanging from his lips as he spat out, “Who brought it down? Vault Hunters?” 

Rhys felt the blood draining from his face. “Um. No – not exactly. It was…” Could he blame it on Vault Hunters? _Should_ he? The men surrounding him clearly had a passionate dislike for Hyperion, but maybe they disliked _traitors_ even more. The right answer was never clear on Pandora. Rhys was so used to telling people what they wanted to hear, that when he didn’t know what that _was_ , he floundered. 

“As much as we love the dramatic silence, kiddo, you might wa—” 

“I did it.” 

Nobody spoke for a long time, and Rhys considered it his cue to explain himself. “It hadn’t been in the original plan, destroying Helios. But plans change, and I trusted the wrong people.” 

The old man huffed a laugh, after a moment, and patted Rhys’ back. “Well then, gentlemen, we’re in the company of a _hero_.” The other men grunted in agreement, except the man with the cigarette, who simply squinted at Rhys. 

“I heard Handsome Jack were back.” At Rhys’ widening eyes, he added, “Specifically heard it from some dyin’ Hyperion stooge I found by the road. ’E was all cryin’ an’ shit, said some punk called Rhys plugged Handsome Jack into the system, called himself President, then it all fell apart.” 

All eyes swivelled back to Rhys. “That true, son?” asked the old man. “Hey, what’d you say your name was, again?” 

_It had been going so well_ , Rhys thought. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I – I’m Rhys.” A shift went between the men, and he tripped over his words, fumbling to stop them from stabbing him where he sat. “B-but it wasn’t – it wasn’t like that. Jack’s – Handsome Jack is _dead_.” He sat up straighter, looking to the man with the cigarette. “Whoever you talked to was wrong,” he continued, and the lies began to form almost flawlessly as he talked. “There was an – an AI of Handsome Jack, stuck on Pandora. He kinda hitchhiked up to Helios with my friends and I when we went back, and plugged himself into the system. Announced he was back, said I’d helped him – but I hadn’t, I _swear_ I hadn’t – and then I crashed the space station to kill him.” 

The four men looked to the old man as though he was in charge of deciding whether Rhys was lying or not. The sick feeling in Rhys’ stomach built, until he was almost certain he’d either pass out of throw up, before the man nodded. A sigh of relief escaped Rhys’ lips. 

A handful of other questions were banded around – _Handsome Jack, what was he like? How did you lose your arm? Do you know if he’s dead? Is Hyperion gone?_ – before Rhys figured he got far more than he came in for, and every minute he stayed was pushing his luck. Pandorans were only nice for so long. 

He found himself thanking them for the hospitality, weirdly enough, to which he received sniggers and heard one of them mutter, “It’s almost funnier to let him go, see how long he makes it.” The comment made him trip over as he left, which earned more laughter, but the door swung shut on him heavily with a sense of finality. 

The joke was on them, really. He’d just conned five men out of their money with answers even he wouldn’t have believed, and he was neither hungry nor thirsty anymore. 

Wrenching the door open on his miraculously not-stolen car, Rhys climbed inside awkwardly, and continued to drive. This time was different, though. This time, he had a destination in mind. 

 

The place is in ruins, but he doubts he should even be surprised. Vallory’s soldiers did quite a number on the place. Broken glass is littered around his feet as he climbs out of the car, collecting the sword and walking with more strength since the health kit rejuvenated his body. Somewhat. The flora that seemed so exotic and beautiful once is now forlorn, dull, branches snapped off and flowers wilting. The destruction they brought here almost seems criminal. 

Rhys takes a deep breath, and heads inside the biodome.


	3. Chapter 3

“Cassius?”

His voice echoes eerily throughout the silent room. Footsteps reverberate loudly, the heels on his boots clacking harshly against the metal surface. The sound makes Rhys uncomfortable; he’s disturbed this place enough already. Surprisingly enough, minimal amounts of damage have occurred to the room itself, despite the bomb Vallory’s goons threw inside. _Probably Dahl._

The screens are illuminated, webbed cracks splintering through them. More glass is laying strewn across the floor, shattered pieces almost a perfect mosaic of the gap in the glass wall where the smashed window once was. Through the empty window, the biodome’s flora stretches out for a mile or two, lit up by the occasional glowing plant or icy blue bubble-shaped creatures. 

One of them floats past the window, and Rhys is glad to see it’s no longer red, returning to the soft turquoise glow they first saw. “One less thing to worry about,” he mumbles.

Receiving no reply from Cassius after calling his name, Rhys decides he’s no longer here – likely skipped town soon after they left. It doesn’t prevent Rhys from treading carefully, keeping a hold of his sword, and ducking his head round the various corners of the room before forcing himself to relax. He needs to sleep. He needs food. In fact, he’s surprised he’s still standing on two feet.

Exhausted, he fights off the unfriendly chill in the air, wrapping his arm round himself and sinking into one of the chairs around the desk. His arm drapes over the surface in front of him, and he leans his aching head into it, shivering once before falling asleep.

 

Dawn is unwelcoming, the harsh rays of light spilling mercilessly into the room Rhys is asleep in. The warmth brought with the light is punctuated by the cold breeze that creeps inside regardless of the time of day, and Rhys awakes with a groan as the wind sharpens in the daylight.

He’ll never get used to Pandora. On Helios, the light is – _was_ – artificial. When people are awake, the lights are on, and when it’s time to sleep, the lights are off. Pandora is unpredictable in such a sense – the sky is purple and orange and green and black and blue and pink, and it’s messing with Rhys’ diurnal sleep pattern. He just can’t seem to sleep when it’s too bright out.

Rhys sits up, bleary-eyed, reaching up with a phantom limb to rub his face before frowning and switching to the only arm he has left. He’ll never get used to that, either. Weakly, uncertainly, he yawns, stretching his arm up before turning to look at the broken window. And the one opposite it. “Yup. Gonna have to sort those out.” Stray flecks of snow float through the gap, the sight making Rhys feel even colder. “…Somehow.”

His eye then turns to his own body, or lack of. The hole in his torso where his mechanical arm was detached has healed over slightly, making Rhys glad for the lack of blood but wince at the gross sight of congealed scabs. He doubts the health kits can regrow an arm. His hand reaches up to touch his glass eyeball, the missing part still in his pocket. One eye, he can deal with. But one arm? It might be a problem.

Despite the list of jobs he has already created in his mind, his first action of the day is to wander around the building and test out any doors they never got a chance to open before. Snow is piling up around the edges of the windows, slowly but surely – he’s glad none of the computers are there – but taking the elevator downstairs to find somewhere warmer gives him more than he bargained for. 

He pushes his hand through his hair, stepping off the elevator to walk down a short corridor. Every door seems to have a bunker-like bedroom behind it, with a cot, sink, and small set of drawers. They're all empty, except for the one with a dead insect the size of his hand inside. All four doors have the same layout behind them, and he remembers that people would have lived here; for Atlas, he knows, their work was their life. 

One bedroom on the floor below has a journal on the bed, and he picks it up to flick through later. It seems to be full of observations on the flora and fauna of the biodome, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be useful. The page it falls open on reveals hasty sketches of the various mushrooms Rhys had seen before, and his lips quirk into a smile when he remembers Jack’s frustration with them. The smile falls quickly, though. Suddenly, the room feels colder, and he leaves it swiftly.

There’s a kitchen on the second floor down. The machinery still seems intact, and upon opening every cupboard door and drawer, Rhys eventually stumbles across some tinned foods. His stomach responds to the sight of the cans, loudly, and he picks up one advertising some form of stew to cook later. There’s also an old ECHOcomm on the countertop, and Rhys finds out it belonged to an undoubtedly now-dead Atlas scientist named Amelia Grant. That is, judging from the number of private messages stored on it addressed to Dr Grant – or, in one heart-wrenching message, “Amelia, my love” – and from the sticker on the back with GRANT printed on it. Deleting the messages one by one, Rhys reconnects the device to the ECHOnet. He may as well stay in touch with the rest of the world as best as he can, now he’s here.

On the floor below, Rhys finds the bathroom. He’s grateful there’s a bathroom.

Hours later, when he’s sat in the main lobby with a decent level of snow spilling through the smashed window, hunched over a bowl of stew and half reading what the journal has to say about plant toxins, the ECHOcomm crackles to life.

“If Helios has crashed,” says the feminine voice, “does that mean Hyperion is gone, too? It was one space station for an intergalactic company –”

“—An intergalactic company that stored all its eggs in one basket,” a deeper voice replies. “Every executive, every manager, every guy with an idea for Hyperion was stuck on Helios. Apparently Handsome Jack’s consciousness was back on Helios, too.”

“Ugh.” The feminine voice doesn’t sound pleased at the reminder. “He just won’t _die._ ”

There’s a moment of silence, static filling the air. “Well, he has now,” is the deeper voice’s eventual response.

Rhys drops his spoon into the near-empty stew bowl to push his hand into his back pocket. The eye is still there, staring up at him almost mockingly. Handsome Jack could come back to life, and he could do it, but he shouldn’t. _You killed everyone to get rid of him, remember?_

Even though he knows it’s stupid, and even though he knows he’d never actually revive Jack, Rhys still can’t bring himself to crush the eye. Dropping it onto the tabletop, he casts a regretful glance at his ECHOcomm, before resuming reading the journal.

 

A week passes.

Steadily, Rhys is feeling the loneliness of the biodome eating away at him. Empty tin cans litter the kitchen and he’s read through the scrawled journal twice over, now. Boards hang over the shattered windows precariously to prevent the cold winds from being too insistent and to stop the bubble-shaped creatures from floating in haphazardly – named, by the author of the Atlas journal, “the strange, Pandoran jellybird.”

_(I’ve decided to name these creatures ‘jellybirds’ for two reasons. One, they seem decidedly similar to the jellyfish that inhabited Planet Earth centuries ago, but are clearly airborne creatures, not fish. So, jellybird! Two, every creature on Pandora seems to have a ridiculous sounding name. It only seemed appropriate to follow this unusual tradition. David seems to agree, and the name even made him laugh, so I suppose it’ll stick, now.)_

Despite his enjoyment of the scientist’s commentary in the journal, Rhys can’t help but feel isolated. With time passing, he wonders whether he should be getting back into the bandit technical and driving to the nearest settlement, but he knows it’s not as easy as that. Any nearby settlement could be overrun with Hyperion workers, none of which would be happy to see him – and that’s if he can even find any of them without any way to navigate. He considers heading to Hollow Point, but again wonders if there’s anything waiting for him there. Fiona and Sasha likely want him dead, even if he could find them in the midst of that city.

Further days pass, and the only voices he hears come from the ECHOcomm, a mixture of private conversation and regional announcements. A former Hyperion employee is talking at one point, trying to rally all Hyperion workers to fight together on Pandora. He’s shot before he can even finish the dramatic speech.

All the while, Rhys’ ECHO-eye stares up at him from the table he tossed it onto.

By the end of the second week, he gives up, and decides to plug it into the ECHOcomm. The wires are easy to manipulate, especially in a facility such as this, and it takes a mere half hour for Rhys to fashion a port from the snapped wires sprouting from the ECHO-eye. It’s a simple task – too simple, almost, and scepticism clenches his gut as though this would turn out to be another part of Jack’s plan all along. 

Rhys takes a deep breath before he pushes the port into the ECHOcomm, mainly to remind himself what he’s doing and why he’ll regret it later. 

A blue face flickers onto the screen, eyes wide and gazing at Rhys for a second before narrowing into slits. “Oh, Rhysie,” says Handsome Jack, voice tinny from the low-quality speakers it emanates from, “you are an _asshole_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally getting to the actual plot!! Sorry it took so long to post again, my life's been so busy recently. Find me @gortisproject on tumblr if you liked this/have any questions <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me at gortisproject.tumblr.com if you're not hating this c;

Rhys is staring at the communication device. He can’t seem to blink. He can’t seem to speak. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he realises he was hoping this wouldn’t work. However, as trembling fingers set the ECHOcomm down on the table top, placing the plugged-in cybernetic eye beside it with care, Rhys is hit with what he’s done. He’s brought Handsome Jack back. Because he was _lonely._

Jack, meanwhile, is yelling at him.

“—Because, oh, that would be freaking _hilarious,_ wouldn’t it, cupcake? Get me begging, get me asking for my life, bet you enjoyed that little power trip, huh? God, I should’ve killed you when you first plugged me into that stupid skull of yours – you ruined _everything,_ Rhys, you son of a bitch, and now I’m – wait.” There’s a pause. “Where the hell _am_ I?” 

“I…” He’s as speechless as when they first met. Jack’s expression changes at the hesitation, almost as though he’s remembering Rhys really isn’t some evil genius after all. “I plugged you into an ECHOcomm.”

It’s not the answer he was looking for. “Yeah, yeah, princess, I could smell the cheap casing and crappy wiring from here. I mean – this room, it’s familiar.”

“Oh. It’s the, uh, Atlas biodome.”

“Of course! The one where Athena tried to kill Stinky McWhat’s-His-Face. Yeah.”

“Thanks to _you_.”

“What can I say? Athena and I are pals. Killing him would’a totally cheered her up.” There’s a moment of silence before he speaks up again. “So, fill me in. What’s been going on? It’s been, like, months.”

“Two weeks.”

“Whatever. It’s a long time when you’re stuck in some theoretically-existent coding vacuum with no one to talk to.” Jack seems… oddly pacified, compared to moments before.

“Yeah,” Rhys murmurs in response. “Tell me about it.” 

Jack squints up at him from the screen. “Oho, I’m not the only one that’s been feelin’ a little lonely, am I, Rhysie. That’s incredible. Classic. You brought me back because you missed your _friends_.”

Rhys doesn’t reply.

“Guessing that little President stunt you pulled up on Helios didn't impress them too much,” Jack drawls, and Rhys clenches his fist because he knows Jack’s right and he knows Jack knows. The cocky grin tugging at the hologram’s lips says enough. 

Rhys hesitates before he speaks. Jack’s been back for mere minutes, but he’s already sinking his claws into Rhys’ mind. He hates it, but doesn’t turn the ECHOcomm off. “I... don't even know if they're still alive.”

A short, sharp cackle is released from the tinny speaker. “Yeah, well, take it from me, kiddo - if they're alive, they'll never wanna see your pretty face again.” Abnormally, he goes quiet, for a moment. “You don't ever really forgive someone for betraying you like that.”

“They betrayed me, too!” It's the first thing to blurt from his mouth. A defence. Rhys almost wants to wince from how petty it sounds.

“Well, kitten, _you_ also betrayed me.”

“And _you_ betrayed _me_!”

“How in the hell—”

“You literally tried to _kill_ me, Jack!”

Another silence for a moment, Jack’s form on the screen flickering out and returning swiftly. He looks uncomfortable, but regains his arrogant attitude quickly enough. “...Yeah, okay. Fair enough. We'll call it even.”

Rhys groans, pushing his hand through his hair again. Despite the shower downstairs, it’s not in the same condition it once was, and he grimaces as a couple of locks of hair fall into his eyes. He misses hair gel.

“So, Rhys. What’s the plan?”

“Plan? For what?”

“ _Everything,_ dummy. You’re holed up in some crappy Atlas facility stacked to the brim with plants and animals that can and will kill you if you step out there, all your old friends are dead or they want you dead, you got no arm, no eye and a freaking hole in your head, if you got any food around then it’ll run out soon, and Pandora – if not the galaxy – is probably in a _mess_ without Hyperion. So,” and his voice slows down, as though speaking to a child, “ _what’s the plan_?”

When Rhys doesn’t respond, Jack heaves a sigh. “Alright, kiddo. Looks like it’s you, me, and another unwanted, yet unavoidable alliance.”

This moves something in Rhys to reply. “Wait – hold up. This isn’t an alliance, Jack.” Pixelated eyebrows raise on-screen. “I’m not here to help you, I’m not here to sell my soul to you, I’m not here to bring back Hyperion. You’re here because I want you here. And – that’s why I plugged you into the ECHOcomm. The moment I don’t want you around, I am _crushing_ it. You don’t get to be in control. Not this time.”

Releasing a low whistle, Jack’s lips are twisting into something akin to a proud smile. “Wow. Baby Rhysie’s earned his feathers, huh? That’s cute. But, uh, if you’re gonna kill me as soon as you’re done, what makes you think I’m gonna do a goddamn thing for you now?”

Rhys’ gaze drops to his hand in his lap, for a brief moment, thinking on his feet. “Because – if you don’t wanna help me, then, um. I can unplug this ECHOcomm now and leave you to yourself. And then bury it outside, so nobody’s gonna find you.” He almost feels mean, saying it, and he doesn’t look at the expression on Jack’s face. “See, I remember you saying something about, _please don’t send me back there, Rhys, there’s nothing there_ – but if you’ve changed your mind about spending eternity with yourself, let me know.”

He finally glances up at the screen, and the unadulterated fear in Jack’s eyes lasts such a fractionally short time that Rhys wonders if it were there at all. Instead, the figure on the screen leans back, assessing Rhys with a critical gaze. “Look at you, finally figuring out how to talk business,” he replies simply, and Rhys sits up at that. Has he won? “Fine. You wanna play this game? I’ll help you out. Hell, I’ll build you a brand new goddamn arm if you want, all shiny and pretty. But I know you, cupcake. You’ll never destroy the ECHOcomm, ’cause you’ll never stop needing me around.”

 

“So, Rhys, enlighten me. Why’d you come back to the Atlas facility?”

Hours have passed since Rhys initially plugged Jack in, and despite the AI’s constant insults, he feels like they’ve already settled into some sort of routine. Rhys told Jack everything that happened after he pulled the ECHO-eye out, but there was little to tell him; Rhys really hasn’t had an exciting life recently. It would be a nice breather from the hellish weeks that occurred beforehand, but he can’t exactly relax; he’s too busy trying to survive. Regardless, the amount he can tell Jack is about escaping Helios’ wreckage, meeting the guys at the bar, and setting up camp at the smashed up wreckage of the biodome. 

He forgot to mention picking up the deed to Atlas, he realises now, and clears his throat uncomfortably. “Well, I kinda… own it,” he mumbles, coughing into his fist.

“You what? Speak up, cupcake, I don’t have ears that – well, shit, I don’t even have ears.”

“I…” He sighs. “I picked up the deed to Atlas from your office when I woke up. So, I… own the biodome. And every other Atlas facility.”

Rhys glances over at Jack, pre-emptively wincing, but the former CEO doesn’t even seem angry at that. “Wow, kiddo, you’ve got some real initiative. I mean, you’re an asshole trying to rejuvenate a company famous for being assholes, but –”

“Oh, right, and Hyperion wasn’t?”

“I’m not sayin’ that. I’m just sayin’… you know. There’s a reason Athena killed ’em all.” Rhys blanches at that, and Jack starts laughing. “Man, imagine a showdown between you two. Wouldn’t last ten seconds. She’d throw her shield, you’d squeak and start runnin’ and all that, and she’d shoot ya. Boom. Headshot. No more Atlas, _again_.”

Rhys presses his hand against his forehead. “Jack, stop. Anyway, Hyperion’s in ruins after Helios crashed, so pulling Atlas back together is the only chance I’ve – we’ve – _Pandora’s_ got of becoming stable again.”

“See, pumpkin, I know you’re talkin’ about a load of important business-y stuff, but I’m still stuck on the mental image of you cryin’ like a baby while Athena shoots your face off. Man. Gotta figure out how to upgrade this crapbox to show you what I’m seein’ in my mind, but like, on this shitty screen.”

Rhys sighs.

“What makes you think you can even pick Atlas up? I dug a grave deep enough to reach the planet’s core for that company.”

“I don’t – I don’t know, yet, okay? All I know is I’ve got a stock certificate for a dead company. But it’s a dead company with a few useful facilities hanging around, like this one. And it’s not like I own anything else on Pandora, anyway.”

Jack huffs a laugh. “Someday soon, kid, you’re gonna realise how good you had it under me. And you’re gonna be embarrassed as shit when you remember _you_ ditched _me_.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys doesn't know where to start, but Jack helps him out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna warn y'all that this chapter has some kinda gory stuff towards the end - without spoiling too much, there's some... self-surgery going on.

Rhys has a to-do list.

The good part of living where a group of scientists used to is that there are a lot of resources – primarily ones that are considered _sciency_. As of yet, Rhys has discovered everything from welding equipment to data storages within the facility. Now, with a professional clipboard propped against the table, he writes down a compact list of everything he needs to do.

1\. Get a new arm  
2\. Get a new neural port  
3\. Get a new eye  
4\. Get more food  
5\. Get some money  
6\. Restart Atlas

Spiteful after a run-in with Jack, beatboxing and some kind of ‘Claptrap impression’, Rhys adds underneath:

7\. Find a way to mute Jack

The AI snickers when he sees the petty addition to Rhys’ list, pixelated arms folding smugly. “Hehe, I like the touch of putting that _underneath_ restarting Atlas, ’cause building a company from the ground up is easier than making me shut up.” He chuckles again when Rhys fixes the screen with a glare. “Also, uh, you’re gonna wanna edit that list. You ain’t gonna _get_ some new cybernetics, pumpkin, you’re gonna _build_ ’em.”

Rhys groans, pulling his pen from between his teeth and dropping his chin to rest on his chest. “Yeah, I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

“Tough! I’m sayin’ it. What, you really thought you were gonna pull those bad boys outta the nearest vending machine? Hyperion isn’t that cheap, cupcake. And you’re either gonna wanna find the factory that produced your arm and eye, or you’re gonna wanna make yourself a new one.”

Raising his head slowly, Rhys frowns at Jack. If there’s a factory, he should be able to simply go there for one instead. “And, uh, where’s the factory?”

A grin forms on Jack’s lips. “One of the Edens. Can’t remember which.”

Rhys’ chin drops back to his chest defeatedly. There’s a stretch of silence, and then Jack snaps his digital fingers. “Atlas has defence turrets, doesn’t it? That’s what you were shutting down before.”

“Yeah…?”

“Alright, kiddo. I think we can improvise something. Although…” Jack winces dramatically.

Rhys sighs. “Although _what_?”

“To build an arm, you’re gonna… need an arm. Two arms. Unless you wanna try some one-handed DIY.” Despite the dramatics, Jack does actually seem regretful. “Soooo… Yup! I got it. It’s cool, your old pal Jack has a plan. And a pretty badass one at that.”

Rhys frowns at him doubtfully. “And that plan is…?”

Jack smiles at him. It’s predatory. “You’re gonna love it, baby.”

 

Several hours later, Rhys finds himself, yet again, at the Helios remains.

“I really don’t –”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack interrupts, silencing Rhys’ concern. “You don’t wanna be here. That’s, what, the eighth time you’ve said that?” Rhys doesn’t answer him, but it’s enough of an answer in itself. He simply starts walking, hopping over scraps of metal and avoiding sharp edges. The desert air is dry, and every piece of debris he touches is burning hot. _Well,_ he thinks, _time to walk into the deadly ruins of my old office to search for the spot where I was almost murdered. Should be fun._

With only one arm, clambering over and under the labyrinthine wreckage proves beyond difficult. He eventually reaches the place he was before – the space carved out of the rubble almost to mimic the grandiose nature of Jack’s office from before. Even the AI goes quiet in his hand, once it’s face-to-face with the large screen it had been downloaded onto before.

Surprisingly, Rhys’ mechanical arm isn’t pinned to the spike he had pushed it onto before. His eyes cast over the room to see it discarded several meters away, on the ground, the hole in the center of his bicep gaping open. 

“Did you leave it there?” asks Jack, confused. Rhys shakes his head.

“No, I – didn’t touch it. Someone else must’ve been here.”

There’s a graceless snort from his ECHOcomm as he clips it to his belt to bend down and pick his arm up, Jack seemingly amused. “Rhysie, everyone’s probably been down here by now. Hyperion’s shining star in pieces in the middle of the desert? Hell, it’s been weeks, right? I’m surprised nobody’s made a freaking amusement park outta these borderlands by now. Hundred dollars to visit the stinking rust pile, a fucking _bargain_.”

A weak sense of satisfaction arises from the bitter edge to Jack’s tone. Rhys forgot that the reminder of the fall of Helios must be equally awful for them both. “But whoever picked up my arm didn’t take it,” he says unnecessarily, chewing on his lip. “Guess they just… didn’t want it.”

Any form of peace that had laid over the area is broken as a clatter comes from behind Rhys. He turns, quickly, expecting to see bandits, but there’s no one there. A moment later, however, he realises that people _are_ close by, as voices echo up from uncomfortably near them.

“We get the scrap metal, we load it into the van, and we drive back. Okay?”

“Yeah, I know, but – why’s the boss even got us doing this?”

“Think he wants to make a house for us, or… something.”

“A house of crummy metal.”

“Shut up, Janet. Better than no house at all.”

From the side of his pants, where the ECHOcomm is clipped on, Rhys hears a murmured, “Might wanna get outta here, kiddo,” and he obeys, scrambling back the way he came before the bandits can emerge and spot him. 

He hugs his metal arm to his chest the entire way out of Helios.

 

“Nononono, what are you doing, you’re gonna –”

“Shut up, it’s my arm, I know how to –”

“Rhys. Stop. Noooo, stop, you’re – ugh.”

“How would _you_ know what to do?” Rhys snaps, metal arm laying on the table as he stabs the screwdriver into it again. “Your biography didn’t mention the part where you _designed_ the blueprints for Hyperion’s cybernetics program.” He glances up at Jack to deliver a swift glare, before his attention returns to the arm in front of him. 

“You’re hilarious, pumpkin. And these things _were_ being made when I was up there. Still early prototypes, too dangerous to shove into people's sockets, yada yada.”

Exhaling through his nose, Rhys looks up again. “That doesn't mean you know how to _build_ them.”

Jack lets out a chuckle. “Kiddo, do I look like the kind of... uh, AI trapped in an ECHOcomm, that _wouldn’t_ wanna know how to assemble these bad boys? I was a programmer, you know—”

“Before you killed your way to the top,” Rhys cuts in. “Yeah. I know.”

"That's right, cupcake,” Jack drawls. His lazy grin is making Rhys uncomfortable, and it only escalates when he clicks his tongue. “’Cause you're my biggest fan.”

Rhys simply glares.

“Ooookay, pouty-face, come on. Have a little faith in me, here. Besides, I ain’t gonna kill you — you die, I die, remember?”

The younger man frowns. “You're not in my head anymore.”

Jack waves an arm nonchalantly. “Weeeell, you know. I die of boredom. There's only so many fun things to do in an ECHOcomm. By which I mean nothing. There’s literally zero entertainment on this thing, seriously. You’d think a nerd Atlas scientist would at least have some fun games installed, but, nah. The most fun I got is making fun of people when they come on the net – and even that’s getting dull as shit. Man. Imagine telling past-me I get tired of mocking Lilith’s stupid voice.”

Rhys’ eye drops back to the arm for a moment, the screwdriver in his hand hovering above the hole in the center of the arm. Truth be told, despite claiming knowledge on how to fix it, Rhys never was any good at physical engineering. He works better with coding the machines, not building them.

“Come on, Rhysie. I’m your pal, I know what I’m doing.” Jack can see Rhys’ hesitation.

“And, uh,” his voice _doesn't_ crack, “remind me again why I should trust you to reconstruct my arm instead of building some kind of – of _bomb_ or something?”

“Heh. That's not a bad idea.” Rhys rolls his eye. “Oh, man, could you imagine the look on your face? It'd be freaking _priceless_ – you know, before you explode.”

“Jack!”

“Need I say it again, kitten? Death. From. Boredom. Now shut up and let me build an arm.”

 

Jack has one easy instruction for Rhys: “Do everything I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it.” It sounds like something he’d have heard in a good dream a few months back. He manages to follow the instruction, though, with only a few mistakes. These mistakes elicit reactions such as “Motherfucker”, “Are you trying to be a little bitch?” and Rhys’ personal favourite, “If I were still your boss, I’d have strangled you by now. Just sayin’.”

Regardless, it doesn’t take long until Rhys has reconstructed something resembling his old arm, still with a gaping hole in the metal but with connected wires and four easy-to-attach plugs sticking out the end. Jack told him to find some sort of painkiller for this bit – well, Jack really said, “As funny as it is to hear you whine like a baby when you’re in pain, you’ll pass out before you stick the first plug in if you’re reaching inside your socket, and that’s probably just gonna screw everything up.” So Rhys has dug out some syringe from the first aid kit hidden in the bathroom, and he now presses the needle into his shoulder. 

He turns his face away from Jack so not to give him the satisfaction of seeing Rhys’ pained features, breathing out a slow, measured exhale after a few seconds and pressing down on the end of the syringe.

“Aw,” Jack croons. “This is like – yeah, reminds me of when I had to inject my daughter with that Insta-Health junk when she twisted her ankle. She pulled the same face you’re pullin’ right now, ‘cept she was _seven_.”

Rhys pulls the needle from his arm with a wince, still turned away.

“Big boys don’t cry, Rhysie. Now – come on. You ain’t got all day, hook it up.”

Feeling on the verge of throwing up, Rhys pushes the tip of the blade into his arm, hissing at the dull throb that awakens in his shoulder. The anaesthetic is good, but not good enough, and it’s with trembling fingers that he pulls out the first lead to attach on. He misses twice, the shaking too much to be able to use the precision he needs. He forces himself to look down.

“Come on, Rhys,” the voice from his ECHOcomm hisses. “Just do it.”

With a steadying exhale, Rhys jams the first plug into his shoulder, flinching at the electric shock that passes through his body. He bites down on his lower lip, and reaches for the next one, shoving it in before he can even think twice about it. There are tears on his cheek, blurring his vision, but he grits his teeth and reaches for the third plug. Behind him, he hears a growled, “Come _on_.”

A third jolt runs through him as the plug connects. His face is wet with tears, now, but he’s so close, just one more plug. With a sniff, he catches the fourth one between his thumb and forefinger, stabbing it into his flesh before correcting himself and threading it into the hole to plug into his arm.

He yelps, slumping down as his arm begins to flicker to life. Within moments the grips around the edge are stabbing into his skin, binding the object to his torso, and he lifts his other arm up to wipe his eye with his sleeve. He feels lightheaded.

“Good, baby, you did so good,” praises Jack. Rhys wants to say something, but when he opens his mouth to reply, there’s only a quiet groan before he passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it got kinda gross towards the end. Also, since this isn't a spoiler (I only included it to tip my hat to what was going on with the other members of the gang during that time), the people at Helios weren't bandits, they were Hyperion employees. The boss is Vaughn ^-^ and he's also the one that picked up Rhys' arm. 
> 
> As always, find me at gortisproject.tumblr.com if you want!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Rhys can realise where he’s heading, his hand has already pressed the button to go up the elevator, and the somewhat-rattling mechanism leads him up to the brisk, chilly main room. Jack’s holographic form flickers to life on the waiting screen. “Hey, kiddo—” he starts, but hesitates at the sight of Rhys. “You… okay, I think sight for sore eyes doesn’t cover this one. You look like shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so Mean Jack has finally returned to the tftbl narrative. he took his time, lmao  
> warnings for similar content to the last couple of chapters + fever?  
> sorry this took so long to update! life's been busy aha

Waking up, Rhys only feels pain. It’s dull; nothing blindingly agonising, but present nonetheless, throbbing in his shoulder as the painkiller wears off. He hiccups and jerks his head off the table slightly, raising his gaze to the screen propped up in front of him. The confusion must be evident on his face, as Jack huffs an amused chuckle when Rhys sits up properly and runs his metal fingers through his hair to push it out of his face.

“Wow,” Jack says, lips pulling back into a predatory grin. “You’re not dead. Gotta say, kiddo, you had me wonderin’ for a minute.” Rhys stares at him blankly for a long moment, face pulled into a frown, before the AI sighs. “Wiggle your fingers for me, Rhys.”

Rhys complies, only because he’s still so out of it he doesn’t know what’s happened. “Did I pass out?” he asks weakly, lifting his hands to move his fingers.

Jack bites out a laugh. “You… have no idea what just happened, do you. Heh. That’s incredible.” He points down to Rhys’ arm. “I’ll give you a moment to figure it out, cupcake.”

Looking down to his arm, Rhys focuses on it, blinking twice before it hits him. “Oh,” he mumbles. “I… have an arm. _Oh_.”

“There we go.”

As sluggish confusion melts away into excitement, the younger man lifts his cybernetic limb, stretching it out and bending the elbow. He twists the arm, touches it, and eventually moves to pick up Jack’s ECHO device, a cheery smile on his lips. “Jeez, this is awesome! I – I really didn’t think that would work, wow.” Metallic fingers curl around the device in his hand, and Rhys looks down at Jack warmly. Moments like this make it easier to forget Helios, and betrayal, and consequence. When Jack’s staring up at him with proud eyes, when his smile is softer than the razor-sharp smirk designed to terrify, Rhys finds himself wondering if Jack _actually_ wants the best for him. 

So he drops the ECHOcomm back onto the table, suddenly feeling colder. Rhys only has an arm because Jack showed him how to get it. The genuine smile on Jack’s face probably isn’t genuine at all.

Rhys’ eye strays to the hole in the center of his bionic arm’s bicep, and then it becomes easier to remember. Jack doesn’t want what’s best for Rhys. Jack wants what’s best for Jack.

Thankfully, the hologram remains ignorant of Rhys’ change in mood, and he begins to talk soon after the ECHOcomm is dropped onto the table. “Alright, pumpkin, you got your arm back. Good goin’. But that piece of junk ain’t gonna last forever – and by forever, I mean I’d give it a week, tops – so this is when the real fun begins, okay?”

“What do you mean?” asks Rhys, tugging a chair forward to sit himself down.

“Now,” Jack replies, “You make a new one. Brand new, I mean. And, sure, it ain’t gonna be anything special, no fancy hacking stuff, no cool image-enhancing crap, but you’ll have _plenty_ of time to upgrade it when you’re a freaking CEO.”

Rhys hesitates. It just doesn’t make sense, how much Jack is rooting for him. “Okay,” he says, slowly, flexing his reinstalled arm again – he _has_ missed having two functioning arms. “So, what’s the –”

“ _Plan,_ what’s the plan, I _love_ your thinking, kiddo,” and he sounds like an AI that was just waiting for Rhys to ask. “Atlas defence turrets – the one thing I remember about those is that the metal they used is basically malleable as shit. So, provided Athena and your girl Fiona didn’t bust ’em up when they went down to get the Gortys upgrade – don’t look at me like that, I pay attention to this stuff – the turret is your best bet at fashioning something decent for an arm in _this_ facility, on _this_ time limit, and with _these_ resources.” Rhys is silent; he’s still trying to process what Jack’s saying. “Come on, cupcake, it’s a genius plan! Looks good on your applications, too – resourceful, built my own arm out of a freaking turret –”

“And my arm won’t be some sort of weapon?”

“Nah, we’ll reprogram the settings, base the wiring around what you’re wearing right now. We’re in coding, baby – this is what we _do_.”

Rhys isn’t comfortable with the idea. He trusts Jack about as far as he can throw the ECHOcomm with his dodgy right hand. But the idea, unfortunately, makes sense. Clenching his newly-rewired fist, tugging his lower lip between his teeth, Rhys furrows his brow before letting out a resigned sigh. “Fine,” he starts, but quickly continues when Jack opens his mouth to reply. “But not today. I need to sleep for, like, a _year_ after all that.” His left hand gestures vaguely to his right.

“Ugh. You’re so weak, Rhys.”

Rhys can deal with being weak. Especially if being weak means he can sleep off the dull throb of pain in his shoulder where the anaesthetic is beginning to wear off.

 

It’s become routine for Rhys to leave Jack’s ECHOcomm in the main room when he goes downstairs to sleep. Part of Rhys hates that there’s a routine at all, but mostly he just knows it’s too risky to leave Jack by his bedside to wake him up in a variety of horrible ways when he gets bored. Rhys knows this from experience.

Tonight, though, as the pain in his shoulder worsens and the sweat gathers at his brow, he knows he won’t be sleeping as much as he hoped. Which sucks. But he drags himself out of his too-warm bed, shirtless, hair drooping into his eyes, and wipes his flesh hand over his face. He needs to take a walk.

His walk finds him in the bathroom, cranking on the cold water and wiping it over his warm face. _Is this a fever,_ he wonders. He’s never had one before – he wouldn’t know what signs to look out for. Regardless, it’s terrible timing, and he groans out loud at his flushed, shaky reflection in the mirror. Pouring cold water on his wrist works for a little while. Drinking the water, seemingly, doesn’t help so much. 

Before Rhys can realise where he’s heading, his hand has already pressed the button to go up the elevator, and the somewhat-rattling mechanism leads him up to the brisk, chilly main room. Jack’s holographic form flickers to life on the waiting screen. “Hey, kiddo—” he starts, but hesitates at the sight of Rhys. “You… okay, I think _sight for sore eyes_ doesn’t cover this one. You look like shit.”

“S’mth’n’s wr’ng,” is Rhys’ eloquent reply, and he heaves a shuddering sigh. “I don’t – um –” 

“Sit down before you fall over, dumbass,” Jack instructs, and Rhys complies, heaving himself towards the chair at the desk Jack’s ECHOcomm is on. “What hurts.”

“I’m really hot,” says Rhys lamely, and Jack sniggers harshly at that. “I… and dizzy.” His breath hitches in his throat, and his hand pushes through ragged locks in vain. He’s panting. He can’t stop panting.

Jack’s silent for a moment, lips pressed together firmly through Rhys’ blurred gaze. “I think you’re in septic shock, Rhysie,” he says eventually, a hard edge to his tone. “Must’ve been plugging the arm back in – crap, how didn’t I think of that? It’s a freaking –” He breathes in deeply, and shrugs, evidently attempting to seem less stressed. “You’re gonna die pretty soon, but lucky for us, Atlas was growin’ the right kind of plants to deal with this crap. Come on, kiddo, get up. We’re goin’ mushroom hunting.”

Feebly, Rhys nods, fingertips struggling to clamp down on the ECHOcomm before he stands up. 

Immediately, he hits the floor, knees buckling and ECHOcomm skidding across the ground.

“Rhys, get up,” Jack hisses, but Rhys’ limbs are so heavy and his brain is so fuzzy. _Get up. Which way is up?_ A shuddering breath wracks through him at the idea of getting up, and he looks helplessly at Jack’s cracked screen, confusion and fear at war for dominating his mind.

Jack’s looking back at him, genuinely concerned, but after a moment an idea hits him. “Rhys,” he said, solemn. “Your arm, it’s still got good software, you can upload me from the communicator and let me take control.”

Panic widens Rhys’ eyes. “No,” he mumbles.

“Rhys, you fucking dumbass, you’re gonna die and I’m the only one that can pilot your meatsuit down to the stupid biodome and _save_ you!”

“No,” Rhys says again, blinking, inhaling sharply. He can feel his heart thudding against his ribs, and he tells himself it’s just the fever, but something about Jack even suggesting that Rhys would give himself up again has set off alarms in his head.

It would be easier to be defiant of Jack’s plan if he weren’t currently sprawled across the floor, likely concussed from the fall and suffering from septicaemia. Rhys grits his teeth and balls his hands into fists, staggering to his feet again with a huff before weakly bending down to pick Jack up.

“I’m – _not_ – show me the damn –” 

Something flashes across Jack’s face, something akin to defeat, but he chews on his lip and says resignedly, “Take the elevator down. You need the gross green plant on the side when you leave.”

Nodding jerkily, Rhys stumbles across to the elevator, leaning against the wall as his breaths begin to come in short, sharp bursts. _Rhys, you fucking dumbass, you’re gonna die_ echoes round his mind during the slow descent to the ground below. Jack’s muttering some curse.

Getting hold of the mushroom and tugging it with difficulty from the soil below, Rhys collapses back into the elevator, groping for the button to send him back up and positively wheezing by this point. Jack is instructing him further, but so long as it doesn’t involve downloading the AI, Rhys is happy to comply. Find the syringe with the anaesthetic. Jab the end into the mushroom. Inject the liquid from the mushroom into his veins. Fumbling, muttering and breathing harshly, Rhys manages to follow orders slowly, fingers trembling hard enough that the empty syringe falls to the ground below and smashes against the hard tile. 

“Wow,” he hears Jack say, and he wants to pass out again but resists the urge. “You didn’t die.” Echoing his words from mere hours before, the AI’s voice is eerily monotonous, digital blue eyes squinting up at him with eyebrows furrowed in displeasure. “Congratulations.”

Rhys doesn’t know what he did wrong, but he decides he doesn’t particularly want to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you Like This, find me at gortisproject.tumblr.com


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you sulking?”  
> This question gets a blue face to appear on the screen, closer than usual, Jack’s squinting eyes taking up the entire box. “Sulking? Nah, Rhysie, only one of us is doin’ that, and he’s the one hidin’ in some deserted facility in the middle of nowhere because he fell out with his friends.” There’s a pause. “Heh. Fell out. ’Cause you also fell out of freaking orbit at the same time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all the feedback!!!! it's really sweet haha and i always appreciate the comments <3 any questions can be answered at gortisproject.tumblr.com

The shivering slows down, eventually. His heart rate becomes more rhythmic. His breathing steadies. Confusion begins to drain from his mind, only to be replaced with a different sort of confusion, one that has his head tilted and his eyes on Jack. Maybe this was it. He _had_ told himself – and Jack – that at the slightest problem he’d put the ECHOcomm under his boot and crunch it… but Rhys knows he needs Jack. Moreso, Rhys knows he needs another arm, and an eye, and a neural port. And maybe some business advice.

He also knows he needs a companion, or the solitude alone will ruin him.

Jack keeps appearing and disappearing from the screen, as though he’s going through a similar dilemma to Rhys. At one point he flickers onto the screen and asks Rhys if he’s okay. Rhys is too shocked to respond, and the AI just disappears again.

Eventually, Rhys decides he needs food.

“Jack,” he says into the empty space, the screen devoid of the former CEO’s face. Some kind of soup sits in front of him, pale yellow and lumpy, but he’s too hungry to care anymore. His spoon pushes it around to help cool the bowl down. “Jack.”

“What’s up, kitten?” There’s a voice, but still no sign of the AI visually. Rhys didn’t even know Jack could do that.

“Are you sulking?”

This question gets a blue face to appear on the screen, closer than usual, Jack’s squinting eyes taking up the entire box. “Sulking? Nah, Rhysie, only one of us is doin’ that, and he’s the one hidin’ in some deserted facility in the middle of nowhere because he fell out with his friends.” There’s a pause. “Heh. Fell out. ’Cause you also fell out of freaking _orbit_ at the same time.”

Rhys glares at him. At least Jack is acting like his usual, asshole self again. He opens his mouth to tell Jack he’s dealing with more than a _falling out_ with his friends, but what comes out instead is, “How did you know there was a cure for blood poisoning in the biodome?”

Jack looks taken aback, but only for a moment, before the AI moves back and Rhys can see his entire face. “Saw it in that dumb journal you keep flicking through, cupcake. Apparently being an AI – and not being in the middle of dying – helps you remember the important stuff.”

Something feels wrong. “But you knew where it was and everything. Did you – plan that?”

“And _why_ ,” Jack replies, exasperated, “would I do that.”

“Because –” Rhys hesitates. He feels the prickle of _wrongness_ at the back of his neck, the curl of anxiety in his gut. Jack’s hiding something, his instinct tells him. “Because… you wanted me to plug you into my cybernetics again. So you poisoned me. And –”

“Buddy, there’s _paranoid_ , and then there’s just plain –”

“—And you _knew_ I’d need your help to get the cure so you thought I’d be desperate enough to download your AI to get to the biodome.” His eyes widen. “That’s it, isn’t it? You wanted to get back in my head.”

Silence hovers in the air for a moment. “Jeez, kiddo, you are a real _fool-me-once_ guy, aren’t you?”

“Answer me, Jack.” The soup is forgotten; Rhys pushes the bowl aside to reach for the ECHOcomm.

The AI sighs. “Rhysie, if you’re gonna be a big businessman in a small universe, you gotta look for opportunities. Be entrepreneurial. You don’t get to the top by reminding your pals to sterilise the stuff they’re sticking into their bodies.”

“What?” Rhys squeaks.

“I didn’t know if your arm or the plugs were gonna infect you, I just didn’t warn you they _could_ have.” A lazy grin tugs at his lips. “But hey, you’re smarter than I give you credit for.”

Feeling faintly ill, Rhys swallows, sitting back. The room seems colder than usual. He knows, deep down, there’s only one thing he can do – it would always come to this. “I should destroy you.”

“But you won’t.”

“I _should_.” Raking fingers through his hair, he looks around uneasily. It’s scary, knowing Jack almost killed him, but it’s scarier that he values Jack’s company over that. With a resigned sigh, he continues with, “So I guess I gotta be prepared for you trying to kill me left, right and center, now.”

Jack raises his eyebrows. “Well, that’s an unnecessarily depressing way to think about it. Consider it me training you for the corporate landscape – especially if your plan is to waltz in and call yourself _Atlas_ – while also furthering my own personal interests. We’re both winners, baby.”

“I almost _died_.” 

“Buuut you didn’t. And that’s the important bit.”

 

Getting the turret turned out to be easy enough. Having already disabled them before, it was just a matter of finding a way up and unscrewing it – and avoiding the hellish flora and fauna of the biodome, but nothing seems particularly interested in attacking him as he walks back with the ECHOcomm clipped to his belt and the weapon in his arms.  
While retrieving the skeleton for his arm was easy enough, fashioning it to work as an arm proves to be endlessly more difficult. Rhys puts his distrust of Jack behind him for this task, taking the AI’s advice on everything from using the turret’s own lasers to cut it to finding creative ways to use the oven grill.

Miraculously enough, despite the limited supplies and stress of working with insufferable characters, Rhys creates an arm. And, using a screwdriver to pop open his current cybernetic limb, he’s currently rewiring and reprogramming it to work.

Jack watches him silently, only speaking up when Rhys does something wrong, and even then there’s something clearly non-malicious in his voice. Rhys glances up to him regularly, when he hasn’t heard him speak for a while, and the AI seems to be content with watching Rhys work. Strangely, it reminds Rhys of being a little kid again; his dad always watched him string code together, impressed, supportive, gently correcting him when he does something wrong.

“Shit,” Rhys says, and the screwdriver in his hand stills. Jack glances up curiously.

“What’s the hold up, cupcake? You were doing fine. You know, for once.”

Pressing his lips together, Rhys set down the screwdriver next to his mechanical arm. His parents. He completely forgot about his parents. “How –” An exhale. “How long does news take to travel? Like, to other planets?”

“Other planets?” Jack huffs a laugh. “What, kiddo, you fall asleep in intergalactic relations class or something? _Other planets_ ain’t exactly specific.” He peers up at Rhys from the screen. “What news you thinking of, anyway?” 

“Helios,” Rhys replies sombrely. “Uh, being destroyed. Hyperion falling.”

After a short pause, the AI clicks his tongue. Somehow. “Edens’ll have gotten the news within the week. Promethea probably still doesn’t know what Helios _is_.”

A week. Briefly, Rhys thinks over how long he’s been at the facility, and how long he was travelling before. His guess is at five weeks since Helios descended from orbit. At least. “Shit,” he says again, this time with more emphasis. Jack has a strange expression on his face’ it’s like he wants to know what’s bothering Rhys, but he doesn’t want to _ask_. Feeling merciful, Rhys explains.

“My mom, my dad, they – probably think I’m dead.”

“Where’re you from?”

“Eden-5.” He turns away from Jack ever so slightly, shielding his gaze. The idea of his parents assuming him dead… it carves a hole in his chest. Sure, he hadn’t been exactly close with them since he left to work for Hyperion, but they’re family. They’re _home_. “I completely forgot – spent this whole time thinking about getting in contact with Fiona and Sasha, finding Vaughn… but my own family thinks I’m dead.”

“Boo hoo,” Jack drawls, seemingly unimpressed. “Who needs parents? I sure as hell didn’t.” He pauses. “Although, if you wanna get your rich boy butt back home – seriously, Eden-5? Figured you were the privileged type from the haircut, but that’s… just kinda overkill – but, yeah, Mom and Dad’s house could be the perfect place to lay low while you figure out what’s next. Unless you wanna keep hanging out in a dead company’s crap hole of a research center.”

Rhys picks up his screwdriver again, focusing determinedly on the wiring in his soon-to-be mechanical arm so he doesn’t have to look at Jack. “Yeah, great idea, except I got no way to tell them I’m alive and no way to _get_ there.”

Shrugging, Jack leans back on the screen. “Quitter talk. You got hold of a rocket last time, right?”

This earns another glare from Rhys. “You mean, because my possibly-dead friends were buddies with a definitely-dead mechanic? Whose rocket, I might add, barely got out of orbit before breaking down. Helios is – _was_ – a lot closer than Eden-5. And all of this is not including the bit where the entire rocket was funded by Pandora’s crime queen.” His voice loses the irritated edge when he adds, quieter, “Besides, I can’t take this home. They don’t deserve to deal with – all _this_.”

Despite himself, Rhys glances back at Jack, who seems unguardedly surprised at the care Rhys has for his family. “Kinda forgot parents don’t always do the thing where they ruin your life,” he says, simply, openly. Rhys doesn’t know what to do with this information.

“Did you not – weren’t you close to them?”

Jack snorts, ungainly. “You mean geographically or emotionally? ’Cause either way, no. I grew up with my gran on Pandora, and if that wasn’t a handful…” He chuckles, but there’s nothing humorous in his voice. “Let’s just say, the Helios database said I _got rid of_ her.”

Rhys nods, and silently returns to working on the arm.

A few minutes pass in quiet, the low hum of nature from outside the only interruption to their silence. Rhys bites his lip, deliberating, before he says, “You mentioned you had a daughter.”

Uneasy silence follows for a brief moment, before Jack snaps, “What is this, a Q an’ A?”

Rhys isn’t surprised by the biting answer, but he says nothing, and Jack seems to eventually relax from his defensiveness. “Angel. Found out in the Helios database that she died, too.” Rhys’ hand stops moving, but he stays silent, and his eyes stay turned towards the cybernetic arm. “Twenty-two, a goddamn genius and the most beautiful girl in the freaking galaxy. The Vault Hunters got her – same ones that got me.”

On the screen, Jack wipes a hand over his face. “They were trying to get the Key. I’d left it with her – she was a _siren_ , but she –” He stops talking. Rhys waits for him to start again, but after several long moments, it becomes clear he won’t continue.

“I…” Feeling like he ought to say something, he’s about to tell Jack he’s sorry for what happened to her, but the words feel wrong in his mouth. “I have a sister. She’s traveling the galaxy to meet a siren. Said it was always her dream, you know?”

“Only six in the universe,” replies Jack, his voice oddly monotonous. “And, trust me, I’ve met sirens. I know sirens. They just ruin your life.”

Rhys hums in agreement. “Well, I told her the travelling was stupid, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Last I heard she’d landed on Athenas to find the siren there, but she was already gone by the time she arrived.”

“O-ho-ho,” mutters Jack, sounding anything but amused, “I know that bitch.”

The daylight is slipping into dusk, filtering rays of dimmer light through the glass. Rhys’ attention resumes to fixing the turret, but he still stores the information in his memory for later. Grandma issues. No parents. Murdered daughter.

Annoyingly, he finds himself feeling _sorry_ for the AI.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u think i won't mention angel?? even if the fic i'm writing has literally 0 relevance?? haha fooled u. here she is, my true love
> 
> also in other news, there probably won't be too many chapters of this fic left. don't worry, it's not gonna run on for another Year or something.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before installing the arm, Rhys had gone through every possible way to sterilise the plugs he’d be inserting into his shoulder. Covered them with some kind of disinfectant spray. Wiped them with a huge leaf from the biodome that the Atlas journal said was like some kind of disinfectant spray. Held them over a flame until they were white hot.
> 
> Jack spent the entire time seeming amused with Rhys’ thorough actions. After a while, the entertained stare from the ECHOcomm was too much, and Rhys pushed it over so Jack was facing the table.

1\. ~~Get a new arm~~  
2\. Get a new neural port  
3\. Get a new eye  
4\. Get more food  
5\. Get some money  
6\. Restart Atlas  
7\. Find a way to mute Jack

Rhys flexes his chrome fingers, curling them into a fist and admiring the elegance with which they fold over. The metal is shining; he can see his reflection, albeit blurrily, but it still looks good. No enhanced hacking tools are situated in the programming, and there’s no hologram projection light built into the palm of his hand, but with the resources he has to spare, it’s pretty functional. Heavier than his old one (discarded on the ground, now, and covered in more blood than Rhys wants to think about), it balances him nicely. To sum up how he feels, Rhys turns the arm over appreciatively, and mutters, “ _Awesome_.”

“Mm, you like that, pumpkin?” asks Jack, head cocked to the side. His grin is predatory.

Before installing the arm, Rhys had gone through every possible way to sterilise the plugs he’d be inserting into his shoulder. Covered them with some kind of disinfectant spray. Wiped them with a huge leaf from the biodome that the Atlas journal said was like some kind of disinfectant spray. Held them over a flame until they were white hot.

Jack spent the entire time seeming amused with Rhys’ thorough actions. After a while, the entertained stare from the ECHOcomm was too much, and Rhys pushed it over so Jack was facing the table.

Despite the AI’s endless, annoying shouting, they made it through that experience.

Now, Rhys sits at the desk, a tissue in his hand to wipe off the blood surrounding where metal meets skin. “I never wanna do that again,” he tells Jack, but the emphasis in his voice is lost by his joy in getting a new arm. Judging by the raised brow, and faint but proud smile, Jack notices.

“Yeah, well, don’t speak too soon, kitten. You’re still missin’ an eye.” He pauses. “And – Rhys, look. I know you’re still pissed about the whole trying-to-get-you-to-reinstall-me thing, but… I’m _sorry_.” Rhys glances down at Jack on the table, surprised by the change of conversation but nonetheless guarded. “It’s just – instinct, you know? Spend so long trying to get to the top that you see an opportunity, you take it. And, Rhys, baby, you are one _hell_ of an opportunity.”

Rhys is still quiet, but he exhales when the voice continues on to say, “I need you to trust me here, kiddo. We’re still a team.”

A humourless chuckle slips from Rhys’ lips. “You know, every time you’ve explicitly asked me to trust you, it’s because you just nearly killed me. Or because you’re about to try.”

“C’mon, Rhys, don’t be such a sourpuss—”

“Why didn’t you just let me die, Jack?” Rhys blurts out. “You didn’t _have_ to tell me how to survive.”

A long silence follows the outburst, Rhys turning away from Jack and running a hand through his hair. The ECHOcomm is quiet, a muted static filling the space where Jack isn’t talking. Rhys doesn’t know why he said that. He also really wishes he hadn’t said it. 

Apparently Jack feels the same way, because the next words from the ECHOcomm are, “Okay, kiddo, now you gotta build a new eye and a new port. And what you _do_ have is the old eye to use to model off, but you _don’t_ have the port. Having said that, if you can speed on down to the Helios crash site again, you’ll probably be able to pick up your old one. Give it a wipe over, quick tune up, should be good as new. The eye, though, might be a little harder to fix.”

Rhys doesn’t have the energy to try and direct Jack back to his question, so he just nods. “Alright. Sounds simple enough.”

“Yeeaaaah, it _sounds_ simple, but we’re also gonna have to make a few pits stops on the way.” This catches Rhys’ attention, and he frowns at the AI, waiting for an explanation. “Just to pick up a few provisions, you know. For one thing – food, because cupcake, I’ve seen your stock pile and it is _low_. Another thing is clothes, because, jeez, you’ve literally been wearing that outfit for months and it’s grossing me out. And since your little Quick Change Station got busted up when Vallory arrived… yeah, you’re gonna need to stop somewhere for that.”

“So,” Rhys replies, “we’re picking up my neural port and then going on a _shopping trip_?”

Jack chuckles. “Hehe, yeah. It’ll be fun, you know. Domestic.” He opens his mouth to keep talking, but is swiftly cut off by a wave of static. “Oh, wait, shut up kid, this one’s from Sanctuary.” It’s the telltale sign that a message is about to be broadcasted on the ECHOnet, and while Rhys wasn’t actually talking, he presses his lips together obediently and leans on the desk to hear what the message has to say.

“ _This one goes out to the new so-called Bandit King tearing up Helios and carting it over to the Eridium Blights,_ ” says a familiar voice, one Jack had labelled as Lilith a long time ago. “ _Stop it. We already claimed the site as ours_.” Jack snickers quietly, but Rhys doesn’t understand what’s funny. He’s already learned not to question it when it comes to Lilith. After a gap in the transmission, the voice returns, saying, “ _And we got sources that say the guy behind this mess is some lanky ex-Hyperion guy called Rhys. Missing an arm and an eye. Anyone who can get hold of him alive gets ten thousand bucks. Dead, and you get nothing._ ”

The transmission cuts out, and Jack laughs. “Holy shit, she’s put a price on your head.”

“Not just my _head_ ,” he hisses in return, folding his arms unhappily. “Alive, she wants me alive. That’s gotta be worth something. Right?”

“Knowing that bitch,” replies Jack, “it’s probably so she can kill you herself.”

Rhys swallows. Jack laughs again.

 

When they arrive at the crash site, Helios debris scattered over the ground, it becomes clear to Rhys that this bandit king has been taking fairly large amounts of the ruined structure. As he hops over charred remains and crawls under precariously-balanced slabs of metal, his gaze follows missing sections and carved-out corners of the debris. There are no bandits present; Rhys is grateful. 

“Someday,” he mutters to Jack, clambering gracelessly over a large tube, “I wanna come back here and know it’s for the last time.” He means it – leaving Helios and heading down to Pandora may have placed his life on a fast lane heading for a brick wall, but it seems he never returns to the space station without something in the back of his mind telling him he doesn’t want to be there. Vallory’s plan… seeing Jack for supposedly the last time… returning for his arm… Rhys decides, plainly and simply, that coming to Helios always fills him with dread.

Jack doesn’t reply to his comment, and stays unusually quiet the entire time Rhys stumbles through dismembered corridors and self-made pathways. 

When he slides down a metal sheet, staggering off and into Jack’s office, the two of them both let out a noise of surprise. Half the room has been stripped of the debris that littered it before. The glass screen Jack projected on so proudly before is now shattered all over the ground. Streams of light dip into the shadowed area, piercing through darkness, illuminating the shards of glass and bouncing rainbows across the empty space. 

“New bandit king’s gotten to work,” muses Jack, and Rhys hums in agreement. _Get the port and go,_ he thinks. _Don’t take any longer than you have to_. So he walks towards the desk in the center of the room, and glances around for his neural port, stonily ignoring the bloodstains that remain on the ground beneath him. It takes a moment, but he eventually spots it among the glass shards, stepping over carefully to bend down and pick it up.

Turning it over in his metal palm, Rhys decides that the port seems relatively untouched, the only area damaged being the wire attached to the end. “So I gotta put this back in my head,” he says unenthusiastically. Jack grunts. 

“You gotta put _something_ in that gaping hole in your temple, cupcake, so why not that? You know it’s safe.”

_Nothing’s safe anymore,_ he thinks, but says nothing in response to Jack, just drops the device in his pocket and turns to leave.

 

“Maybe you should go to Sanctuary,” Jack says out of nowhere, and Rhys’ fingers slip from the gearstick momentarily in surprise. 

He’s driving through the sandy stretch of desert, the bandit technical car’s lack of a roof or windows allowing him to feel the breeze in his hair and the sun on his skin. His sleeve is rolled up to his elbow, and the buttons at the top of his shirt are undone. As his hair kept falling in his eyes with no gel to comb it back, the red clip-on tie has been wrapped around his forehead like a bandana. Jack laughed when he did that, but it’s proving effective enough.

“Sanctuary,” he replies monotonously. “You mean, that floating city in the sky where the Mayor wants my head?”

“Mayor!” Jack exclaims, delighted. “She’d love that. Scratch that, she’d hate it. So _I_ love it.” The AI, whose ECHOcomm is perched on the seat next to Rhys, folds his digital arms. “Besides, you said so yourself, kiddo – she doesn’t want your _head,_ she wants you alive.”

“You said that was so she could kill me herself!” 

Jack chuckles. “Yeah, but that was just to put the fear of God in ya. And it worked, and it was hilarious. But for realsies, Rhysie, you’re probably safer in a floatin’ bandit camp than down here.”

Pressing his lips together in what is most definitely not a pout, Rhys exhales through his nose. 

“Aw, don’t pout at me like that, kid.”

“I’m not –” He pauses, sighs again, and looks back at the road ahead of them he’s trying to follow. “Why Sanctuary? I thought you hated that place.”

“I do,” the AI responds fiercely, without hesitation. “And every freakin’ psycho inside it. They’ve taken more from me than you could _ever_ imagine. But, cupcake, if you waltz in there demanding respect as the guy who caused the Helios massacre,” and Rhys winces at that word, “then they’ll love ya. Simple as shit. They give you a bed, get you some food, you work from the inside to crash the city and kill ’em all –”

“Jack!”

“— _kidding,_ kidding. ’Sides, if anyone’s crashing that pisshole of a mining ship, it’s gonna be me.”

Rhys takes a sharp left turn on the road, knocking the ECHOcomm over screen-down. He allows himself a short laugh at the muffled, “Pick me up, dammit,” before reaching over and righting Jack up.

“We’re not going to Sanctuary,” Rhys says, confident. “We don’t _need_ Sanctuary. The Atlas biodome has everything I could need in there. Until Atlas is up and running… I’m staying there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to all the lovely messages you've left on here!!! and as always, find me on gortisproject.tumblr.com if u wanna.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He pulls over, at one point, to sleep. The car is immediately rocked by a thresher that pops up beside him and dips underground to attack again. Swearing quietly, he has no choice but to activate the car again and hit the boost.  
> Helpfully, Jack spends the entire event laughing at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took so long to update!! i've been on holiday the last week or so.

They’ve been driving for a long time. Jack tries to convince Rhys he’s leading him somewhere he can get new clothes, and food, and ‘make him look like a decent human being again’ – Jack’s words. Rhys isn’t so sure; as the ground changes from rock, to sand, to soft earth, he begins to wonder if Jack is leading him anywhere at all. “Should’a hooked you up to a Fast Travel Station,” Jack mutters for the fourth time as they drive through a shallow river and emerge the other side, the stars fading above them as dawn begins to creep up the horizon. 

More than anything, Rhys is tired. Typical that Jack would only go on a roadtrip he can’t actually participate driving in. Of course, the AI reminds the young man that if he plugged him back in, he’d be able to take over the deathly boring task of driving for a few hours to let Rhys sleep. These comments only wake Rhys up more.

He pulls over, at one point, to sleep. The car is immediately rocked by a thresher that pops up beside him and dips underground to attack again. Swearing quietly, he has no choice but to activate the car again and hit the boost.

Helpfully, Jack spends the entire event laughing at him. 

“Rhysie, baby, you’re not gonna get any sleep out here,” he tells him smugly, voice loud in the silent night they drive through. The thresher is long gone, and so are the twelve others that appeared immediately after it, but Rhys is still eager to move as quickly as possible. “This is Pandora. You’re in the _borderlands_ , kiddo. If somethin’ ain’t attackin’ ya, it’s because somethin’ else already _is_.”

Rhys grits his teeth, heaving out a sigh through his nose. “How did you even survive down here? I mean, you were a good fighter, but this place is… insane.”

After chuckling briefly at Rhys’ evident struggle to adapt to Pandoran life, Jack adopts a strange accent, one Rhys recognises from radio adverts. “ _At the Hyperion Corporation_ ,” the AI mimics, “ _your weapons are created not just to kill your enemies, but to kill them with style!_ ” Rhys glares at the ECHOcomm, and Jack lifts his hands in surrender. “Okay, but really, when you grow up on Pandora? You learn to manipulate it. This planet, it’s… it’s just waiting to be remolded into somethin’ good. Whole place is artificial. Man-made. That’s the human way, Rhys – don’t adapt to your environment, make it adapt to you. Waste of time to do otherwise.”

Appropriately, Rhys rounds the corner of a cliff, then, and a Hyperion facility situated on his right gleams at him. “So you don’t learn to survive Pandora,” he murmurs, eye on the perfectly-shaped buildings for a second longer than necessary as he moves off the dirt patch and onto a road that curves round the hills with ease. “You make Pandora learn to survive you.”

“Genius!” Jack exclaims, slapping a digital thigh and grinning up from the screen. “That – I like that quote. Make that your propaganda piece when you start up Atlas, kiddo.” He clears his throat. “ _At Atlas, our weapons are not created with the intention of you surviving your environment, but the intention to make your environment struggle to survive you!_ Or, you know, somethin’ like that. It’s gold, trust me.”

Despite himself, Rhys feels strangely proud. 

 

It takes an embarrassingly long time for Rhys to realise where they’re heading. 

So that – despite the familiarity of the scenery, the numerous Hyperion-owned facilities and settlements, and the absurdly large number of loader bot corpses they’ve driven past (each of which makes Rhys’ heart flutter uncomfortably) – he only actually recognises their destination when he sees the unmistakeable skyline on a lilac atmosphere, at the end of an incredibly long bridge.

“Welcome to Opportunity,” says Jack, and something wistful in his tone surprises Rhys. He looks down at the ECHOcomm.

“You’ve taken me _here_?” 

A half-hearted smirk lifts the corner of Jack’s lips. “You should be honoured, cupcake,” he drawls. “Not many Hyperion workers have gotten the – heh – _opportunity_ to visit this paradise.”

Uneasy, Rhys stares from the driving seat of his car, gaze stretching over the bridge and skimming across the variety of tall buildings he can see. “And it won’t be overrun with bandits?” he asks uncertainly, glancing back down at Jack momentarily as he slows the car to a stop at the entrance to the bridge.

“Hell, no. After some assholes from Sanctuary managed to break in and vandalise the place, I had the whole thing shielded. Kinda like a, _no one goes in, no one comes out_ deal. Got all the construction workers puttin’ in more effort, too, since they couldn’t slack off. Can’t imagine why anyone would take the shield down after I died – project was still goin’ on without me.” For a moment, the AI peers at the distant silhouette of his city. “Yup. I do _not_ remember that building on the right existing last time. They carried on without me, little tykes.”

“Okay,” Rhys says slowly. “But if no one can go in and no one can come out, then… how do _we_ get in?”

“Heh, you’re cute,” is Jack’s patronising reply, and Rhys rolls his eye. “Firstly, if I’m right – and I always am – then once Helios came down, the people in the city would’a figured out how to get outta there. I mean, think about it – no more orders, no more blueprints, no more supplies, they’re gonna figure out a way to get out or they’re gonna die. Next – supplies! I didn’t mean literally nobody came in and out, ’cause otherwise they’d all run outta stuff an’ die. Which would’ve been funny as _shit_ , but I needed a city, not like, evening entertainment.”

Rhys shudders.

“And thirdly, I’m Handsome goddamned Jack. I make rules, and then they don’t apply to me. So I always had access to the city.” He huffs a laugh. “I got a voice-activated password. You’re lucky to have me, really.”

Sighing, Rhys starts the car, wiping his new metal arm over his face as he begins to travel across the narrow bridge. Undeniably, the city is stunning, catching rays of light on every glass panel of every window of every wall of every building. The city is made to shine, to glow, to stand beautifully on a freshwater lake as the Highlands around it are put to shame. It’s magnificent.

Rhys’ throat dries as he sees a poster of Jack draped across one of the glass towers. He’s younger, prettier, but the angle of his thick brows and the twisting smirk on his lips asserts the same clear authority and power that the Jack he knows now still has. WELCOME TO OPPORTUNITY, says the poster. Heterochromatic eyes gaze down at him benevolently.

Throat clicking as he swallows and tears his eye from the poster, Rhys focuses on the road ahead, rolling to a stop outside of a translucent barrier. Jack coughs, and Rhys looks down at him.

Jack jerks his thumb at the slight podium on the side of the road. “That’s where I gotta put in the password,” he says, and Rhys picks the ECHOcomm up before sliding out of the car. “I hate having to be picked up,” the AI adds grumpily on the end, which brings a tired smile to Rhys’ lips.

The password turns out to be “Sanctuary sucks” and a door rises from the ground to provide safe passage into Opportunity through the shield when Jack says it. Rhys can’t resist rolling his eye; it seems so typical, so strangely endearing. But he walks through the doorway, closing it down afterwards and gazing up at the intimidating structures rising up in front of him. The car doesn’t fit through the doorway; they leave it outside and pray no bandits come this far up the bridge to claim it as their own.

A vivid blue sky is arcing across the horizon, now, and warmth fills the empty city streets as Rhys feels the sun beating down on him. A soft sigh escapes his lips without his permission at the gentle heat, nothing akin to the viciously cold Atlas biodome but similarly far from the burning temperature of the desert.

“That’s it, baby,” murmurs Jack, clearly proud at Rhys’ reaction to the city. “Soak it all in. This? Is the future. And it’s a fucking gorgeous one at that.”

As Jack had predicted, nobody from the construction team remains around. Some constructor bots stand, deactivated, among buildings throughout the area, and even a few walking bots have stayed to dutifully guard Opportunity’s streets, but none approach him. None even notice he’s there. 

“Don’t sweat it,” his ECHOcomm tells him. “They probably just know you’re Hyperion.”

A moment later, Rhys collapses on a well-placed bench, eye skirting over the lake, and he tells Jack, “I need somewhere to crash, for like, twenty hours.”

Jack grins up at him. “Tired, princess?” At Rhys’ glare, his grin only widens, and he hums. “I mean, you look all set to stretch your gangly body over this bench here and snooze it out, but if you want some class, you could try the executive suite.”

This gets Rhys’ attention, and he blinks heavily. “Executive… what?”

“This place, Opportunity, it was designed for the richest asses in the galaxy to get cozy. And me? I’m the richest ass of them all. I had a place put in for me, right at the top of –” He points to the top of his screen, and Rhys looks up in the general direction to see one of the impossibly tall skyscrapers. “—that tower there. It’s got everything, kiddo. Bed as big as one of your dumb middle management offices. Kitchen stocked for years. Shower with a water pressure that’ll probably leave bruises compared to what you’ve been usin’ for the last few weeks. All yours, since I sure ain’t gonna need it right now.”

Rhys hesitates. It sounds too good to be true, but if Jack is genuinely offering…

“Come on, I’ll show you the elevator. Just round the corner from here.”

Restraint broken, the young man stands up, stretching his exhausted limbs and beginning to walk in the direction Jack instructs him to. As he steps into the shadow of one of the skyscrapers surrounding him, he pretends not to feel the prickle on his neck. The one that makes him feel eerily watched. 

Regardless, the eyes of Hyperion’s former CEO follow him from every poster he walks past, and Rhys begins to wonder if he should pay less attention to the warm gaze of Jack’s eyes, and more to the calculated smirk that promises nothing but danger. _Opportunity is a wonderful place,_ his paranoia reminds him. _Watch out._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're in opportunity!!! i love this trashy superstar of a city so much i'm not gonna lie  
> any questions or feedback, you can hit me up on gortisproject.tumblr.com <33


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He asks Jack how long he’s been in Opportunity, expecting the answer to be around two days. Jack tells him it’s been more than a week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heeeey so i completely forgot to update this for a while over the summer... oops. i lost the motivation to write this story for a while, and i had a half-finished chapter in my drafts for AGES, but then i figured i may as well just round off what i'd written and post it bc it was clear i needed a fresh start to write the next bit. soooo, basically, this is a filler chapter. i'm sorry.

Walking into the executive suite reminds Rhys very much of being inside Jack’s office for the first time. This is largely because everything is… big. He steps out of the glass elevator into a huge, half-empty room, decorated with a thin smattering of dainty furniture and unused equipment. The walls are white, the exteriors merely large panes of tinted glass, and the fluffy carpet beneath him is a light cream. It’s modern, suave, minimalist, and everything Jack isn’t.

“I didn’t design this place,” Jack tells him, as though he was reading his mind. “I told the guys, ‘make me look rich’, and they didn’t realise that meant ‘make everythin’ outta pure gold’, but this place is pretty sweet digs anyway. Didn’t have it in me to kill ’em after my girlfriend said she liked it. You know?”

“That’s charitable of you,” Rhys jokes, placing the AI on a clear glass table. He presses his metal hand on the tabletop to steady himself as he kicks first one, then the other shoe off, nestling striped socks into the thick rug beneath him. 

“You like that, Rhysie?”

Evidently, the feeling of comfort rising in Rhys shows on his face. He hums approvingly, eyelids drifting shut as he takes a moment to exhale. “This place,” he murmurs, “it’s… beautiful, I guess.”

“Damn right it is,” Jack’s sharp voice affirms arrogantly. “It’s mine! Gotta be beautiful.”

Smirking, Rhys moves to sit down on one of the pristine white sofas, but a shrill, “A-ah!” stops him. He glances quizzically at Jack, who looks horrified. “That thing, right there, that is clean. You are not. Take a goddamn shower before you touch my stuff, princess.”

Flushing, Rhys’ gaze turns back towards the spotless seat, then back to Jack again. “Didn’t realise you were a neat freak,” he mutters, one eyebrow quirking up at the screen to mirror Jack’s own expression of indignation.

Jack glares at him, and Rhys supposes he deserves it. “I’m not, but kiddo, you’ve got ten kinds of crap on you and your stupid clothes right now. Any man would shed a freaking tear at _that_ –” to which he gestures to Rhys’ entire body, “– goin’ on _there_.” Embarrassingly enough, Rhys realises then that his unwashed socks have left faint brown marks on the cream rug. _Jack’s right,_ he decides, though he remains unwilling to accept it.

It’s probably a good thing Jack doesn’t have a sense of smell, too.

 

Ducking under the stream of hot water makes Rhys gasp aloud. As his hair is flattened and his shoulders are massaged by the strong spray, the young man tips his head back, combing fingers through his hair and releasing a guttural groan at the all-encompassing feeling of _luxury_. He had taken showers at the Atlas facility, but icy water and getting back into the same dirty clothes led to minimal chances for him to actually _wash_ himself. There was also no soap, no hair products, and the towel was a tiny thing he could hardly pull around his waist. Suffice to say, he hadn’t felt a clean man.

Now, though, six hair products and two bath gels later, Rhys emerges from the bathroom with a soft, thick towel wrapped snugly round his waist, shivering slightly as his bare chest hits the cold apartment air but nonetheless relaxed by the shower. His hair, towelled roughly to stop the dripping, remains messy atop his head and falls limply into his vision. 

Jack snickers. “Don’t you look comfy, hm?” he asks, voice different, perhaps a little lower. Rhys sticks his middle finger up at the ECHOcomm without looking in Jack’s direction and drapes himself across the white sofa he had been denied access to previously. At once, his limbs melt into the shape of the soft leather, and he sighs, happy.

Finding this hilarious, another chuckle escapes Jack. “Ohoho, Rhysie, you were _made_ for this. Look at you! Practically purring.”

“I’m comfortable, okay,” replies Rhys, voice muffled as he sticks his face into a throw pillow. “It’s been a long time since I was comfortable. And clean.”

“Speaking of clean,” Jack says, still clearly amused, “burn your old clothes. Just. Burn ’em.”

“And wear what, exactly?”

“Kitten,” he coos, “I’ve got a wardrobe. Better than that, I’ve got a Quick Change Station. Both of which are better than the rags you’re still tryna pass off as _clothing_.” The AI falls silent for a moment. “I’m your buddy, Rhys, let me help you out.”

 _We’re far from friends,_ Rhys thinks, but he’s not sure which of them he’d be trying to convince with the statement. Furthermore, it seems to please Jack when Rhys affirms his questioning statements as to where their relationship stands. So he grunts tonelessly into the cushion and hopes Jack will take that as, _yes, I’m cautiously aiming to be your friend, but you keep trying to kill me. Also, I really want your clothes, so I don’t want to piss you off._

Jack probably doesn’t translate that as Rhys was hoping, but whatever he says next is lost on the young man as he begins to drift off into sleep.

When he wakes up, the sky has changed colour and his neck hurts. Jack isn’t on the screen when he lifts his awkwardly-placed head, but a dimmer light has taken over the room, less gleaming white and more muted shadows across the decor. 

“Jack,” Rhys mumbles, voice scratchy from disuse, “are you–”

“ ** _HEY_**!” comes the over-amplified yell from the ECHOcomm, making Rhys flinch and scramble upright as Jack appears on the screen, howling with laughter and doubled over. Rhys scowls at him, defiantly wiping saliva from his lip. Jack, still cackling cruelly, manages to gasp, “Oh, pumpkin, should’a seen your _face_!”

“What the – why the _hell_ – ?”

“Rhysie,” Jack interrupts, grinning wolfishly, “It was freakin’ hilarious. And – hey – ’bout time you woke up, too. Sky’s dark. You’ve spent the last several hours shiverin’ in a waist towel with your neck twisted like a field rat.”

“A field what?”

“Never mind,” and the AI sounds impatient, now, “I’ve been waiting, like, _ages_ for you to wake up.”

Rhys wants to point out that Jack could have woken him at any time with the same tactic he used to startle him moments before, but something in him stops him from saying anything. He realises Jack probably knew that. He then realises Jack let him sleep anyway. Whether it was an act of kindness or a selfish amusement from the clear discomfort in Rhys’ neck, it still surprises the younger man. So he keeps quiet.

Instead, Rhys stands up, stretching his arms above his head and feeling various joints crack in the movement’s wake. Readjusting the towel still looped loosely around his hips, he pushes his fingers through his hair and asks Jack, “Would you, by any chance, have any hair gel?”

Jack grins at him again, and Rhys finds himself almost smiling back. “If I do, it’ll be in the top cupboard. Probably. I dunno, hunt around or somethin’, those nerds that built this place kept my suite well stocked.”

Following the instruction, Rhys steps back into the bathroom, tugging the door behind him.

 

He doesn’t want to admit it. Because once he admits it, especially to Jack, he’ll never be able to take the words back. When he embraces just how much he truly loves being in Opportunity, he knows he’ll never go back to the Atlas biodome. It’s understandable; he’s exchanging a moldy room for expensive furnishing, a cramped bunk bed for a king-size mattress, and constant fear for relative security. The biodome was a place for discomfort, for sacrifices, and too many memories of friends he’s now lost haunted the vast jungle beyond the building. But Opportunity is different — Opportunity is _luxury_. The city rises like a monument to Jack’s power, now a monument to Rhys’ _own_ power, strong and beautiful and impenetrable. Opportunity gives him a fortress and a home.

This is in spite of the constant tension curled in the back of his mind, stemming from the fear of Jack and all his creations. At night Rhys wakes with sweat on his brow and a vivid image of Helios burning at his feet; by day there is no concern, no worry. He shakes off his dreams, as he has little else he can do.

He asks Jack how long he’s been in Opportunity, expecting the answer to be around two days. Jack tells him it’s been more than a week.

It should scare Rhys, how easily he can slip into this sense of security, but he doesn’t feel afraid. Spending his days dressed in an oversized, garishly yellow Hyperion sweater and shorts, even Jack’s complaints that he’s become a _hot mess_ in his fashion choices — Jack’s words, not Rhys’ — don’t prevent Rhys from enjoying the comfort being laid before him.

Hours during the daytime are spent wandering the quiet streets of Opportunity, dipping into restricted buildings and marveling at the untouched, shining plazas. Sometimes he leaves Jack behind, goes alone, sits and relaxes in the sun as he pretends Pandora isn’t falling apart beyond this lake. Rhys has learned to ignore the robots as they wander past him, on patrol as always, as they pay him no mind. 

At other times during the day, he is bent over a desk, his ECHO-eye and neural port inhabiting a space deep within the Hyperion Office Complex for him to work on. Jack accompanies him here. The ECHOcomm is always perched on the edge of the desk, cracked screen portraying thoughtful eyes as the former CEO watches Rhys work. Again, in Opportunity, resources are abundant, and finding both the tools and the replacement parts to stitch up his neural port and entirely remake the cybernetic eye (unfortunately without the added bonus of his ECHO scanner) was a simple task. 

The only problem with the resources he finds, Rhys realises, is that they’re all Hyperion resources. So when he switches the eye on, plugged into a battery and flickering to life after all his hard labour… it’s _yellow_.

Well, more of a dull gold, really, but it’s enough to make Jack laugh. And then stop laughing. And point out that this is a better match for Rhys’ organic eye than the blue one he was issued ever was. “Once Hyperion, always Hyperion, baby,” he sneers.

Lifting up his chrome hand, which replaced the yellow one, Rhys replies, “No, see? I’m already, like, thirty percent Atlas now.”

“Thirty percent. You think one arm is _thirty percent_ of your body.”

Rhys blinks. “Shut up.”

Regardless of the colour of his new implant, one thing is certain — he now has everything he needs to make himself whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me @hyperionangel on tumblr !! (yes i changed urls again)


End file.
